Exploring information visualization: describing different interaction patterns

Interactive Information Visualization methods engage users in exploratory behavior. Detailed information about such processes can help developers to improve the design of such methods. The following study which is based on software logging describes patterns of such behavior in more detail. Subjects in our study engaged in some activities (e.g. adding data, changing form of visualization) significantly more than in others. They adapted their activity patterns to different tasks, but not fundamentally so. In addition, subjects adopted very systematic sequences of actions. These sequences were quite similar across the whole sample, thus indicating that such sequences might reflect specific problem solving behavior. Davidson's [7] framework of problem solving behavior is used to interpret the results. More research is necessary to show whether similar interaction patterns can be found for the usage of other InfoVis methodologies as well.